New And buying first 150mW laser!

Hey, My name is Jordan and i'm new to this forum.

I am also fairly new to the world of lasers, I just ordered a $125 150mW focusable laser from Rayfoss as i have heard a lot of reviews and they are such a good price for a laser this powerful. I know a lot about the power of lasers and all the different color spectrums. The only lasers i have ever owned are cheap 1mW red lasers when i was a kid, and a few years ago i owned a 40mW green laser which i used to pop balloons which i also pot-modded to around 80mw and then it burnt out after a few weeks, now im almost 16 and feel ready to upgrade myself to a nice expensive build 150mW laser which i plan to have fun burning, keeping protected of course and doing anything i can.

with my last laser i built myself a time-tunnel using a motor and a mirror but the beam wasnt to bright so it wasnt very exciting as it was 40mW.
When i receive my new 150mW laser in the next few days, i want to start on some hardcore laser stuff, nomatter how dangerous or exciting. i have read through the forum briefly on different projects or things to do but i dont have the equipment or money to do it.

So can anyone give me some really good ideas on what i could do with it? Something cheap or just something that just requires the laser itself, i just want to explore different things to do that i never knew before, maybe something interesting about physics or something dangerous or just something very exciting or interesting.

Your input will be very much appreciated as i intend to learn.

Thanks,

Jordan Sutton

you could try make a spirograph, scanner, timetunnel machine and use this laser in those. Also try get your hands on a fog machine it will increase the visibility of the beam, this would give better effects to your machines above... you could also point it in the sky (watch for planes), this will give you a nice strong beam of green that seems to go on forever. you can also burn stuff with it... but please wear saftey glasses when playing with these kinda powers!

Hope that helped -Adrian

Take apart a strip of firecrackers and light the quick-burning gray fuses from as far away as possible. Could work from kinda far away since the laser is focusable and the paper/black powder fuses light very easily. Put out street lights with it. See how far away you can shine it at something (safely), like a radio tower 2 miles away. I don't know if that is the kind of stuff you are looking for or if you want more "Laser Show" type stuff. Buy some diffraction gratings.

These are all very good ideas, but other things i want to do like ZRTMWA said, i do want to do more of the laser show effects but i havnt got the money to build expensive and complex systems, maybe a few cheap electricle components i can buy, i know i wont get the effects i want to achieve something like this YouTube - My homemade X/Y laser scanner but i know something like that is way over my budget, if only there was a much cheaper or household way of doing it. i would say i am more into the light effects like this, is there any suggestions or tutorials on how to do this or something similar cheaply, like i said i have already done the time-tunnel but i want to do something more interesting.

You could turn your speakers all the way up and put your laser in a bowl of jello on top of the speakers. Watch the beam bouce around the room with your music. Cool effect for cheap!

ZRTMWA said:

You could turn your speakers all the way up and put your laser in a bowl of jello on top of the speakers. Watch the beam bouce around the room with your music. Cool effect for cheap!

Click to expand...

Thanks good idea but i cant see it gaining the effect to the standards i am looking for, i can spend some money or maybe find some electrical equipment as i used to mess around with electronics and build a few pointless things but i just want a cheap way to create that effect in that video that i posted in my first post.

Thanks.

hello sutty.....why didn't you buy the 200mw version of the same laser? it cost 150$.....just 25$more...! but maybe you made the right chouce... maybe the 200mw is not real.. the 150mw instead should be more stable and TRUE 150 if not a bit more.

realista said:

hello sutty.....why didn't you buy the 200mw version of the same laser? it cost 150$.....just 25$more...! but maybe you made the right chouce... maybe the 200mw is not real.. the 150mw instead should be more stable and TRUE 150 if not a bit more.

Click to expand...

well seen as i wanted a laser of high power fast i could only just afford the 150mw laser, i plan to buy maybe even a 350mw-500mw laser later this year when i have saved a lot of money, Now that's Power!

Welcome to the Forum....

You'll find a lot of useful Laser Related information here...
but you will need to read... read... and read some more...
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Jerry